


Wonderland

by wirefern



Category: Phantom Thread (2017)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-16 07:01:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16080923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirefern/pseuds/wirefern
Summary: Mushroom hunting





	Wonderland

Here is the autumn forest during golden hour: honey-colored light gilds the stream bank and the last of the season's wild orchids. There's a chill in the air, a smell of wet stone and rot. 

Alma has her scarf, but she's left her gloves at home. Her basket sits beside her as she raids a fairy ring of champignons, kneeling in the moss to cut each mushroom loose and drop it in her basket with the chanterelles and elderberries.

Also in her basket: ivory funnel, yellow-stainer, and fly agaric. She has plans for all of these.

The dogs spot something-- a pheasant? A hedgehog?-- rustling in the leaves and run ahead. 

Alma stops and turns to watch Reynolds, lingering behind, notebook in hand. Shoulders rolled forward in his long coat, a permanent curve shaped by years bent over his work. Reynolds and Alma are dressed in their country house clothes: layers of knit and tweed, thick rough fabric scattered with dog fur, saturated with wood smoke from evenings spent before the fireplace. Alma wears her hair pulled back in a severe chignon, no earrings, a moth-eaten sweater, an old coat of Reynolds', a pair of wellingtons:  _beautiful._

(She has recently taken the ink out of Reynolds' fountain pens and hidden the ink jars; he can no longer sketch without her permission. He carries his book with him out of habit. Soon, Alma will take this away from him as well.)

Reynolds hesitates at the base of an ash tree, pushing at the moss and leaf litter with the toe of his boot.

“What have you found?” she asks. "Let's have a closer look."

He kneels, slips on his glasses, and brushes back fallen leaves with his pin-pricked, calloused fingertips.

“These,” he says, gently touching the gilled underside of the cap.

Alma crouches beside him and passes him the knife; Reynolds slices a stem and hands the mushroom to her.

She turns it over in her palm, her face flushed in the cold wind.

“Well?” he inquires.

The delicate gills, the curled edges. These are the ones.

“Yes," she replies. And then: “I want them all.”

Alma studies Reynolds as his hands work in the dirt. He cuts the stems and Alma tucks each mushroom into her basket, next to the apple-red fly agaric. When he’s freed the last one from the patch, Alma rises. From above him, she slides her hand down the back of his head, fingering the nape of his neck, cupping his skull in her palm. He fumbles within her coat, grasping her skirt, clutching the back of her thighs. She wears a simple cotton dress and slip. He bundles their fabric into his hands, burrowing his face in her upper thighs and belly.

The frost-scented wind loosens the fringe of Alma's scarf and long wisps of her hair, blowing them wildly about, but tucked against her, Reynolds is safe and warm. This is what he dreams of now: Alma's warm body, the security of a life lived under her control. The dreams of his mother have long faded.

“Get up," Alma tells him. 

He leans a hand flat against the trunk of the ash tree and pushes himself to standing.

“Time to go home,” she says.

He whistles for the dogs— _c’mon, lads!-_ and they bound out of the woods. But though Reynolds called for them, they run to Alma. He watches them, these dogs of his, trotting adoringly beside her.

Tugging his coat more tightly around himself, he languidly follows his wife and his dogs back to the house. He does not bother to hurry.  By the time he reaches the kitchen door, full lavender dusk has fallen. Mushrooms are washed and diced on the chopping board, butter already spattering on the griddle.

And in the room upstairs, his bed is made with fresh sheets. A stack of clean towels and an enamel basin sit close at hand. Waiting.

 


End file.
